It's not exactly a secret that Rich Rodriguez's downfall at Michigan -- aside from that whole Michigan Man malarkey -- was the team's defense in his tenure. More specifically, the lack of defense. It doesn't matter much that your offense can score 30 points a game when it's allowing 35. So one of the first things that new head coach Brady Hoke has to fix if he wants to avoid Rodriguez's fate is the Michigan defense.

Mattison has ties to both Hoke and Michigan, as both have worked together under Jack Harbaugh at Western Michigan, and at Michigan under Lloyd Carr. In his two seasons as Baltimore's defensive coordinator, where he replaced current Jets head coach Rex Ryan, Mattison's defenses finished third and tenth in the NFL.

If he can bring that kind of success to Ann Arbor, then it may not be long until Michigan is once again competing for Big Ten titles. Though if he has any stuffed animals that he uses as motivational tools, he should probably leave them behind in Baltimore. Maybe bring Ray Lewis and Terrell Suggs instead.

Although UCLA says that he's still currently its offensive coordinator, all indications are that Norm Chow doesn't have much time left working for the Bruins. At least, you wouldn't think so considering the team is reportedly hammering out a deal with former San Francisco 49ers offensive coordinator Mike Johnson. Fear not for Norm Chow, however, for it seems that should he be replaced by Johnson in Los Angeles, he won't be out of a job for long.

While Rick Neuheisel is busy trying to replace Chow, Norm isn't just sitting around waiting for the axe to drop. He's reportedly involved in talks with Utah about their offensive coordinator position. It seems Kyle Whittingham wasn't exactly thrilled with the Utes' offensive performance down the stretch, and is looking to make a change. Which is somewhat understandable considering Utah scored 68 points over its final five games, and 38 of those came in a win against San Diego State.

Chow has long been considered one of the best offensive coordinators in college football, though his time at UCLA has been pretty forgettable. He also has ties to Utah, where he played guard -- NORM CHOW WAS AN OFFENSIVE LINEMAN!? -- from 1965-67. If he did return to his alma mater, it would make for some interesting matchups when the Utes move to the Pac-12 next season.

Once there he'd be facing two teams he used to work for in UCLA and USC, not to mention the fact that Chow also spent many years at Utah rival BYU, where he mentored guys like Jim McMahon, Steve Young and Ty Detmer.

The agent for San Diego State head football coach Brady Hoke has been in discussions for Hoke to possibly become the next head coach at the University of Michigan, a source close to the situation said.

Trace Armstrong, Hoke's agent, has declined comment. Hoke and other SDSU officials have not returned messages for several days.

Hoke was in the Los Angeles area Tuesday recruiting for SDSU. Meanwhile, the plane that Michigan Athletic Director Dave Brandon has been using for his coaching search planned to fly to nearby Orange County Tuesday afternoon.

Now, unlike Miles, I have a hard time believing that Hoke would turn Michigan down if the school did make an offer. First of all, Michigan is quite the step up from San Diego State. Second of all, Hoke has basically said as much in the past. So it's possible that Michigan could have a new head coach by this time tomorrow, as you have to think that time is of the essence in this search as signing day creeps ever closer.

I never really believed that Michigan had a shot to get Les Miles to leave LSU, but I have to admit that over the last few days, I changed my mind. Miles was giving vague answers to questions by reporters, those Michigan planes were in Dallas and Baton Rouge, and he was spending a whole lot of time talking to the school. Of course, I should have known that as soon as I changed my mind and thought he was headed to Ann Arbor that there was no shot.

The school issued a release last night saying that it was prepared to do whatever it had to in order to keep Miles in LSU, and it seems that they have. Considering the amount of time that Michigan spent with Miles over the last few days, you have to think that the school made an offer, and that Miles turned it down. That or he let LSU know what Michigan was offering and LSU decided to match or surpass it.

We'll likely find out more in the coming days.

As for where Michigan goes from here, nobody knows for sure. However, if you're Brady Hoke, you have to have a smile on your face right now.

Those sure are some interesting looking planes in Baton Rouge this week. If you're into the fun trend that is tracking flights across this country, then you'd already know that the plane belonging to Michigan booster Richard Rogel has been in Baton Rouge for a few days now. It's also been rumored that Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon took a plane of his own to Dallas over the weekend to meet with Les Miles during the coaches convention. Whether or not Miles has already had contact with Michigan, we don't know. What we do know is that it looks like the interview process is about to be made official, as the Detroit News reports that Miles will officially interview with Michigan this week.

Miles is back in Baton Rouge this morning to attend the press conference for Patrick Peterson, who will be announcing that he's entering the NFL Draft. After that, sources tell the Detroit News that Miles will interview with Michigan on Tuesday.

Which means one of two things. Either Les Miles will be the new head coach at the University of Michigan before the week is over, or Les Miles will have a nice little pay raise from LSU by the end of the week. We know that Michigan has already said it won't spare any expense in finding a new coach, and Miles already makes $3.75 million annually at LSU. We've also heard that LSU will try and keep Miles in Baton Rouge.

Yes, I've grown just as tired of all the Jim Harbaugh talk the last few days as you have. Every 20 minutes the Stanford head coach is interviewing with somebody else, and about to sign a bajillion dollar contract to leave Stanford and coach somewhere else. It's tiresome. That being said, I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't share this with you.

Remember way back 72 hours ago when Jim Harbaugh was going to be taking over for Rich Rodriguez at Michigan? Yes, well, that scenario was quickly shut down when Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon said he was fairly certain that Harbaugh was headed to the NFL. Well, we can no longer be sure that's the case, and one man with ties to both Stanford and an NFL job that Harbaugh was being considered for seems to think that Michigan is back in play for his services.

"To me, it’s coming down to Stanford, and I think Michigan is back in the picture," John Elway said in an interview with Denver radio station 87.7 The Ticket. "I think he wants to stay in the college level. 'Cause we’ve been in touch with him, and they are aware we’d like to talk to him if he wants to go the NFL route."

Of course, all this means is that for the next 12 hours we're going to hear about how Michigan is ready to give Harbaugh $8 million and then tomorrow he'll announce he's staying at Stanford.

Wednesday brought quite a flurry of rumors about Penn State defensive coordinator Tom Bradley and the head coaching job at Pitt. First he was the new head coach, then he wasn't. Then he was texting his former players to let him know he was taking the job, and then he wasn't sending his players anything. Here we are a day later, and Pitt still doesn't have a new head coach.

Will it end up being Bradley, we don't know. What we do know, however, is that according to a report on Pantherlair.com, Pitt athletic director Steve Pederson wasn't even in Pittsburgh to be interviewing Bradley. No, apparently he's in Atlanta to talk to Tulsa head coach Todd Graham.

According to sources, Pederson was in Atlanta meeting with Tulsa head coach Todd Graham.

Graham, 46, was interviewed in Pitt's first coaching search of the 2010-11 offseason, but multiple sources have confirmed that financial issues prevented him from moving further in the process. He is currently believed to be making more than $1 million annually at Tulsa.

The report also says that Alabama assistant head coach Sal Sunseri has interviewed with Pitt as well this week.

Graham has been at Tulsa since 2007, and has gone 36-17 in those four seasons, and has had three seasons with at least 10 wins. He has no experience coaching at Pitt, but he did spend a few years as an assistant at West Virginia.

In the Rose Bowl, Wisconsin offensive coordinator Paul Chryst made a few decisions that left Wisconsin fans baffled and angry. Now it sounds like his next decision could end up leaving Wisconsin and its fans without an offensive coordinator. Chryst has been rumored to be a candidate to replace Greg Davis at Texas for a while now, and he was in Austin to interview on Tuesday.

While there is no official word on what the offer is, it has been rumored that Texas is willing to pay up to $1 million to each of their new offensive and defensive coordinators, and while Wisconsin is working on giving Chryst a raise from his current $361,000 salary, would they be willing to give Chryst $1 million? He's already the second-highest paid assistant in the Big Ten.

Chryst has been an assistant at Wisconsin for seven seasons, though he was let go by Barry Alvarez in 2002 and spent the next two seasons at Oregon State before Alvarez brought him back to Madison in 2005. What may keep Chryst in Madison is the fact that he's a Wisconsin native and a graduate of the school, and may not want to uproot his family to Texas.

All that being said, $1 million is $1 million. Offers like that don't come around every day, and can prove to be hard to turn down.